Because I Can
by Ailinu
Summary: When a would-be writer says something she really doesn't mean, she has no idea what she's getting into. Especially when Feanor takes her words as a personal challenge. Part of the Plush Toy Collaboration.
1. Chapter 1

"And so, chainmail is better than plate armor because it allows more movement." The words were spoken by a teenage girl, leaning back in her chair as she watched her younger brother, waiting for a response. She did not have to wait long.

"Then why didn't more people use chainmail?" For an eleven-year-old boy, he seemed to have an extraordinary interest in Middle-earth, especially the armor, weapons, and battles which had taken place there. The girl, called Kristin by most, absentmindedly twirled part of her bangs around her finger as she thought of an answer which would not only be satisfactory, but would give her brother reason to leave her alone.

Standing, she finally said, "It's because chainmail was more expensive, because it's harder to make. I mean, if it's really good chainmail, you'd have to weld every little link to the ones around it." Sometimes, she wished her brother wouldn't come to her with all his questions, but then she remembered a very basic fact. Being the only person in her family who had actually read _The Silmarillion_, she was regarded as the expert -somewhat- on Middle-earth, especially the First Age. It would be a blatant lie to say that she minded this status. Talking about the First Age was always a surefire way to pass the time, and sometimes the questions her brother asked actually required a bit of thought.

The younger boy seemed about to say something more, but was interrupted by a slamming door. Kristin left the room quickly, thankful for a reason to go. "Who slammed the door?" she called out in an irritated tone. Kristin, much like her mother, hated it when people slammed doors. Unfortunately, her brothers did not feel the same way.

"Sorry!" Kristin rolled her eyes. _Sure. Just like he was last time,_ she thought, turning from the hallway into the stairs, as she retreated down to her room. Retreat, she reflected, was always an option, especially when you had just gotten a stack of books, and therefore didn't want to talk to anybody. Reading was one of her favorite pastimes, along with various forms of music.

It seemed, though, that her chances of reading her beloved books were becoming rather slim. "Kristin, you've got to come see this!" She sighed rather loudly, but walked over to the table at which her older brother was sitting.

"What is it this time?" _If it's another quiz on that 'sporkle' website..._ Her thoughts trailed off into the endless choices of what, precisely, she would do if all Luke wanted her to see was a quiz.

"Guess what I just set my alarm as?" Luke asked, bent over his phone. Kristin thought for a moment, distracted from the books waiting for her. Guessing games involving Luke's alarm choices…wonderful. Still, though, it was better than watching Katherine sleep after her cross-country meet.

"Something from 'Llamas with Hats'." It was less of a question than a statement, because one thing that both Luke and Kristin shared was an obsession with the aforementioned videos. On a second thought, she added, "Or 'Stairway to Heaven'."

Luke laughed. "Carl, that _kills_ people," he said, in perfect imitation of Paul. It was, so to speak, Luke's signature 'Llamas with Hats' line, made better by his uncanny ability to imitate voices. "Why would I have 'Stairway to Heaven' as an alarm? That like, a guarantee of a bad day. I mean, who wants to wake up to Led Zeppelin?"

The normally solitary teenager shrugged off the questions, as well as the name switch. Luke seemed to call everyone Carl at one point or another. "What is it, then?" She tapped the side of her thumb against the table, an annoying habit she had picked up a few years before. In reply, Luke turned up the volume on his phone and pressed 'Play.'

"Carl, that kills people…Carl, that kills people…Carl, that kills people." Kristin snatched the phone out of her brother's hand, and muted the volume. She handed the phone back a moment later, smirking slightly.

"Nice one," she told her brother. "That's going to make Thomas want to kill_ you._" Due to having a large family, everybody shared a room with at least one other person. Luke was unfortunate enough to share a room with Thomas, their eight-year-old brother, who was very easily annoyed. She suspected that he would be especially annoyed with such an alarm, as he hated 'Llamas with Hats'.

"I know, right?" Luke seemed oblivious to his potential doom. Perhaps it was a good thing that he was going to be at college in less than a year. Then again, Kristin realized, maybe it wasn't such a good thing. Being oblivious would not get her brother through college. At least, it probably wouldn't. Kristin nodded, sighed, and walked away, heading for her room.

Once there, she collapsed on her bed. "Living with the Fëanorians would probably be easier than this family," she muttered to herself. "At least there were only seven sons…" Quickly, though, she regretted the words. "Alright, alright! We're not that bad. Whatever." She picked up the nearest book, _Gregor the Overlander_, and opened it, ready to bury her mind somewhere in the pages of the story. A folded sheet of paper fell out. She picked it up, unfolded it, and immediately dropped it again. Written on it were four words:

_Challenge accepted. – Curufinwë Fëanáro_


	2. Chapter 2

As one could imagine, the weekend passed in a state of expectation. Kristin had no idea why Fëanor had sent her a message, or, for that matter, what he meant by the aforementioned message. It was only on Monday, after a slightly depressing but otherwise very normal day of ninth grade, that she found out what was going to be happening. As she walked up to her own front door, humming a OneRepublic song under her breath, Kristin noticed a large box blocking the door. Irritated, she moved it out of the way, noting with some interest that it was surprisingly light. It was only then that the packaging label on the box was noticed. It was addressed to her, but the return address read like this:

Fëanáro Curufinwë

Cell 4892, Basement 5

Halls of Mandos, Valinor

She blinked, shocked. Up until that moment, it must be admitted that Fëanor's note had not been taken very seriously. She had not told her family anything about it, having thought that it was merely a trick played by either Katherine or one of her brothers. The best way to deal with tricks, of course, was not to react at all, and to act like nothing had happened. By doing this, the trickster becomes so curious as to whether their trick was noticed that they drop a hint about it, thereby giving themselves away. The odd thing was, though, that nobody in her family had begun to drop any hints. While Kristin might have been able to go for longer than two days without dropping a hint about a trick she had played, it was highly unlikely that anyone else in her family would have been able to. Well, Luke may have been able to, but he was not the type to play tricks.

Now, of course, it had been revealed that this was not, after all, a trick. No one that she knew would have been able to label a return address quite like that. With a sigh, she opened the door, placed her violin on the hallway bench, and then returned to the porch to haul the box indoors. With a bit of effort, Kristin maneuvered the cardboard box through doors, around corners, and down stairs until she finally pulled it into her room and leaned it against Katherine's bed. With a bit of luck, Katherine wouldn't care enough to move the box. The teenager trudged back upstairs to bring her violin down as well, and nearly ran into Thomas, who was grinning and talking loudly about something that he had done that day at third grade. Joseph was running down the hallway, Tucker was throwing his backpack across the living room, and Katherine was sprinting for the kitchen. Kristin quickly collected her violin and retreated to the basement once again, where she grabbed the book she was reading, found her iPod, and settled back to get lost in the world of Ranger's Apprentice until someone – most likely Joe – shouted down the stairs that it was time for supper. At that point, she closed the book, put down the iPod, and went back upstairs, leaving the cardboard box ignored. This, it turned out, was not really a great idea.

While the family was gathered upstairs, eating tacos and talking about what happened that day, the sound of muffled voices came from the box. There were a few moments of argument, followed by shouts of protest as the box tipped over. The tip of a knife began to protrude from near the top of the box, cutting neatly through the tape until what had been the front and was now the top of the box split open, and a dark-haired elf sat up. Apparently, he did not get out of the box quickly enough, because from beneath him came the cry, "What are you waiting for, a sign from the Valar? Get off me, you oaf!" The elf smirked, then carefully stood and stepped out of the box. He was followed in swift succession by two red-headed elves, both of which seemed to be deep in the middle of an argument. They stopped, though, once they looked around at the room, which was primarily decorated in shades of purple. There were two doors in one corner, and the dark-haired elf opened one, then closed it again and tried the other. This door led out into a large, well-lit room, and he quickly moved out into it, followed by the other two. The envelope still in the box went unnoticed as the three elves began to explore their surroundings.

Meanwhile, Kristin had finished her taco and was leaning back in her chair, listening to Luke talk about the rivalry between his geography teacher, Mr. Borash, who was more commonly known as Deebs, and his Spanish teacher, Maestra Qualley. As he talked, she found herself thinking about what had happened earlier that day, when another ninth-grader – she thought his name was Mason, although, if asked, she would not have been able to explain why – had helped her open her locker. Kristin, to put it frankly, had trouble with lockers, and that day had been especially frustrating. She thought she had heard someone call him Qualley, although she couldn't be sure. She had never been good at talking to people, especially people her own age. If you put her in a room with a few random people, she'd be fine after a couple of minutes, but starting a conversation with another person in her grade was completely beyond her. Truth be told, she was painfully shy. This line of reasoning was why she didn't know whether the boy's name was actually Mason Qualley – she had been far too shy to do much more than tell him her locker combination and say a quick thank you. The moment Kristin heard her brother mention his Spanish teacher, though, her mind started connected the dots. _Qualley…that actually makes sense, seeing as 'Mason' actually looked rather Latin-American. It's just my luck, really, and rather funny if I think about it – if it's true, of course. It may just be me assuming things again. Still…one teacher's kid meets another within the first two weeks of school. It's like there's some force directing all children of teachers to meet sooner or later. _

She shook her head, pushing away the thought as she picked up her plate and left the table, heading for the stairs. Her train of thought turned instead to the books that Katherine had picked up from the library earlier in the afternoon. The sisters had recently started the _Ranger's Apprentice_ series, and had immediately become fascinated. Kristin had finished the first two books within a day, and although her younger sister had taken a bit longer to do the same, she had finally finished, returned the books, and brought home the next two books. The only problem, though, was that Katherine wanted to read the books first. While this may not have seemed like a very difficult problem, it tried Kristin's patience. She read much faster than her sister, and waiting for at least a week and a half to read two books that she had been waiting for was rather annoying, if not downright infuriating. No amount of persuasion could convince Katherine to change her mind, so she supposed that she would just have to find a few different books to read while she waited.

With these thoughts on her mind, it was no great wonder that Kristin didn't notice the three elves until she was almost all the way down the stairs. Finally, though, she looked out into the basement, taking the two red-headed elves sitting together in front of the keyboard and the dark-haired elf looking suspiciously at the computer. She took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. One of the elves at the keyboard poked a key one more time, and then looked up, nudging his brother with his elbow. "Hey, look! Do you think-?"

The other elf looked up. He remained silent for a moment, watching her carefully and seeming to take in every detail. At last, he nodded sharply. "It's definitely her." He smiled, and Kristin began to feel a little nervous. "Carnistir! Here's the girl Ada was talking about!" The elf at the computer looked up, nodded sharply, and went back to cautiously clicking the buttons on the mouse. "So…you're Kristin, right?" He raised an eyebrow, looking up at her. She nodded quickly, not entirely trusting her voice. The elf seemed to have a slight accent, but she wasn't about to point that out, either. "I'm Ambarussa. Well, Ada said that you'd probably be more familiar with the name Amrod, but I thought I'd introduce myself as Ambarussa anyways. This is Amras, but you can call him Ambarussa, too. We call each other that all the time, so it won't make much of a difference. That's-"

She interrupted him, not quite believing what she was seeing and hearing. "That's Caranthir, then, right? I mean, if you called him Carnistir, the Sindarin form of his name would be Caranthir, and…I'll shut up now, okay?" Kristin stared down at her feet, slightly ashamed of being so rude as to interrupt someone – especially an elf. _Wait…what is going on, anyways? Elves are…in my basement. How did they get here? Why are they here?_ The most troubling thought, by far, was simple. _What are Mom and Dad going to think?_

As in all times of crisis for minors, there was only one solution. "Mom! You need to come downstairs _now_!"

**Note: Most people at about midnight on their golden birthday - *sleeping***

** Me at midnight on my golden birthday - *desperately trying to stay awake long enough to finish proofreading this so I can put it up. (birthday present to myself) Please forgive any errors, as I'm half-asleep and will probably spot them later.**


End file.
